Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting – PI Buzz

The Cerro Gordo County, Iowa Sheriff announced that he is removing the arrest warrants database from their Web site. The active arrest warrants list from 2006 is still available through Archive.org. Complaints lead to the Sheriff seeking a county attorney opinion, which said that warrants are not public records until the subject is arrested.

Iowa legislation SF204, signed last month by the governor, makes explicit the terms of release of active arrest warrants.

A criminal or juvenile justice agency may redisseminate arrest data, and the name, photograph, physical description, and other identifying information concerning a person who is wanted or being sought if a warrant for the arrest of that person has been issued.

At the same time, the Linn County Sheriff released their active warrants list, which is now posted on an Iowa newspaper Web site.

This database contains more than 2,000 outstanding arrest warrants for people wanted by the Linn County Sheriff’s Office. The oldest warrants date back to 1965 and include warrants for everything from parking violations, missed court appearances to felony theft and sexual-abuse charges.

This newspaper site also has mapping of recent crimes in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area, which includes address of crime location.

Many Iowa police departments and Sheriff offices lists their active warrants.

The Department of Education Web sites for Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee and West Virginia are a few that have a searchable database of certified public school teachers. These databases can mostly be searched by partial name, a convenient tool to obtain a teacher’s full name, verify her certification or how long she’s been teaching. States that don’t have educator certifications online – such as Mississippi – but whose teachers are nationally certified are in the database of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Search by state, city, district or name.

If you want to identify states that have online teacher certification records go to the specific state Department of Education Web site. Not everything can be found in a search engine! As an additional measure, you can formulate a Google query. One way you might look for the Massachusetts teacher licensing:

Massachusetts “teacher certification ” “department of education” -site:.com

Some states may refer to this as an “educator certification”.

South Carolina requires the last 5 digits of the teacher’s Social Security number to verify a credential – making the site unusable for the general public. California teacher lookup is at the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing site, which won’t come up if you’re using the phrase “teacher certification”.

The California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement has 5 different personal information databases, including a studio teachers certification database. Search other State Labor Department Web sites.

I previously wrote about some school finder resources and other state educator certification lookups.

The news that Google is assisting some states with indexing their online public records content has been repeated in the mainstream press, without shedding much light on the what or how. The Arizona Government Technology Agency does a better job, detailing the agency records that are included and the nature of the indexing.

To improve access to State information, Arizona technology managers have been working with Google to implement the Sitemap Protocol for online State databases. This protocol enables a website owner to communicate the contents of a web accessible database to commercial search engines so that information in the database can be indexed and searched by commercial search engines. Pilot Sitemaps have been implemented at the Arizona Governor’s Office, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, AHCCCS, and the Departments of Administration, Health Services, Public Safety, and Real Estate.

Most public records indexes require the searcher to go to the government site and use that site’s search mechanism to find individual personal information records. But many of these will now be accessible through a general search engine, bringing part of the deep Web to the surface Web.

Here are three different query formulations that you can perform in Google of the Arizona Department of Real Estate licensee records, the first two of which return the same result – pointing to the Arizona government record. The third lists the same result in the 3rd Google entry.

The order of the first and last name has to correspond to that in the public record if you put the terms within quotations.

“STRADLING, REBECCA” arizona real estate license

“STRADLING, REBECCA” site:azre.gov

rebecca STRADLING “real estate”

The State of Arizona also has a Google custom search engine, where you can perform the same search, but only searching Arizona “State Agencies, Boards and Commissions, Legislative Government, Counties, Cities and Towns, and Tribes.” In this case, the same name search, without quotes, returns a manageable 10 records. If needed, you can then refine the results to the appearance of the terms in only legislative, state, county or city Web sites.

The State of Colorado active local governments page is an alphabetical list of all 3000 Colorado counties, municipalities, special assessment districts, school districts and property tax entities. Bookmark the list of links to the home Web pages for Colorado counties and cities.

Sometimes seeing the visual relationship of the counties on a map is helpful, and even better when the county image links directly to the home Web page.

State archives are wonderful repositories for documents that aren’t available at other state or county agencies. Like many of the state archives, Colorado has put an index of its holdings online. The Colorado archive also has searchable indexes to historical military, marriage, divorce, probate and census records. Each result list for the particular type of records returns a name and date. Search by partial name through all of the indexes to develop a list of the records where your search terms appear. You can email this list to the Archive to get a quote on the cost for them to retrieve and copy those records.

Unfortunately, the business entity search at the Secretary of State is too restrictive in the search fields, limited to company or Agent name. But the search results are more extensive, linking to document images corresponding to the type of filing. After a free registration, search the UCC filings by partial individual or company name. The free service does not include document images but it does return the date and type of filing, the debtor names, the secured party and the collateral description.

The Colorado Attorney General doesn’t have a database search for AG opinions. But Google can help! To find the appearance of, for example, the word “conservation” in any AG opinions go to your Google search box and enter your query like this:

conservation site:www.ago.state.co.us/agopinions/

This is the results page.

The AG also links to professional license name searches. You can even download records for all licensees by profession.

Search across all professional licensing boards regulated by the Colorado Division of Registrations by licensed individual. The site warns, “While most of the professions and occupations are licensed, others may be registered, certified, or listed. For precise terminology and requirements related to a profession or occupation, please consult the website of the appropriate board or program.”

If you must, view the names, town and (sometimes) photo of the state lottery winners in 2006 and 2007.

Today’s county award goes to Jefferson County. Search for an address by street number only, which returns a list of all addresses with that number. Link to property details, ownership history, parcel mapping and sales information on neighboring properties.

The North Carolina Sex Offender Registry has added email notification and mapping. Search by partial name, city, county, address or physical coordinates to retrieve a list of offenders. Select a profile, then click on the mapping symbol. Expand the view to include registrants within a 1, 3 or 5 mile radius. Hover over the icon to view the other nearby registrants’ photos and addresses. Then request email notification whenever a sex offender is registered at an address within that radius. The search function also covers sex offenders who are incarcerated.

Montana driving record histories and vehicle license information can now be obtained from the State of Montana Web site. Both are only available with with an account, subject to a permissible reason, outlined in the subscriber agreement.

…Personal Information may be requested as a part of Agreed Data only for the following purposes:
A. By any insurer or insurance support organization in connection with claims
investigation activities, anti-fraud activities, rating, or underwriting.
B. In the normal course of business by a legitimate business or its agents,
employees or contractors:
1. To verify the accuracy of personal information submitted by the individual
who is the subject of the record to the business or its agents, employees
or contractors; and
2. If such information is not correct, to obtain the correct information, but only for the purposes of preventing fraud by pursuing legal remedies against, or recovering on a debt or security interest against an insured or applicant.
3. To verify vehicle information.
C. By an employer or its agent or insurer to obtain or verify information relating to a holder of a commercial driver’s license required under the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 (49 U.S.C. Part 383)
D. For use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral
proceeding in any Federal, State, or local court or agency or before any selfregulatory
body, including the service of process…

[Via TVC]

Booking photos of those who are arrested but not charged or found not guilty must be removed from Web sites maintained by county Sheriff offices, according to an opinion issued by the Alabama Attorney General.

Plot parcels and geographic features on the Tucson Arizona Department of Transportation GIS parcel viewer. Search by address, real property owner name, name of school or intersection. Mastering the map functions can take some time if you’re not versed in the Autodesk program (which requires the Internet Explorer browser), so you might want to consult their map viewer guide. The easiest way to plot a parcel is to search by the owner name, address or parcel number from this page. Then select the link, “zoom to parcel”, which highlights the parcel on the map. Select “detail information” to link directly to permit history for that parcel and recorded documents.

Print and save maps with the features you specify. The Tucson Department of Transportation also produces other maps related to traffic and geographic land characteristics.

The Department of Justice lists clemency recipients from 1989 to 2001. Name, type of relief, year sentenced and offense are included, and for some years, the federal district in which the charges were filed.

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole lists names of inmates with upcoming parole or pardon hearings. Idaho Commission Of Pardons and Parole has a month-by-month record of hearings and decisions since 1999 with the inmate name and Department of Corrections ID number. The decisions record also notes reasons for the action taken. Montana has dispositions from 1999.

Nevada posts a PDF of inmates under parole consideration.

Some other parole boards are listed here and here.
State archives maintain older records of paroles and pardons.

A complaint about Social Security numbers exposed on a federal government contract and grants awards online database has lead to their removal from the Census database and from FedSpending.org, OMB Watch, which operates the database of financial awards, has removed the ID number field, which listed some Social Security numbers.

At the request of the government, OMB Watch is willing to temporarily redact the Federal Award ID data field for the entire FAADS database if the government agrees to provide a plan for updating the unique identifier without personally identifiable information within 30 days.

As reported:

Federal Database Exposes Social Security Numbers, New York Times.

Agencies expose 100,000 Social Security numbers on Web, Government Executive.

The Sunlight Foundation background on the OMB Watch, New York Times and federal agencies exchanges is well worth a read.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department crime mapping program plots crime incidents that have occurred over the previous 3 months. Search by type of crime, address, landmark and within a radius to get reported crimes plotted on a map. Label and print a color PDF map with icons designating type of crime and location.

The Coral Gables Police Department has a searchable database of vehicle accident reports and incident reports. Search accident, arrest or incident events by location, name, report number or date. A sortable list is returned with date, type of contact, location and whether an report image is available. Report images are available for accidents and incidents but not arrests. But arrests at a particular location may have been proceeded by an incident involving the same subject, for which a report image would be online. Name of contacted individuals are listed. See image example.

Philadelphia will be the first region in Pennsylvania to implement an automated inmate release telephone notification. The service, which just covers local jails, will be available to anyone, not just crime victims, when it goes into operation in June 2007. The Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAVIN) alert program will add the other counties over the next 18 months, and may later add state inmates.

The Houston Independent School District is the most recent Texas school district to post its payments to vendors online. Expenses can be identified by vendor but not by type of expenditure. Other districts have some payment information online as well.

A law under consideration in the Nevada legislature would prevent sealing of court cases involving high-profile litigants, which the judges had been doing, according to a survey by the Nevada Appeal.

There are many commercial services that offer a free FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number) search by company name across multiple states simultaneously. All return different results and amount of detail. Below are screenshots of a company name search in 3 different FEIN services. You can also view the results at this page.

The free portion of the service FEINSearch returns a list of companies with the corresponding city and state. The results list of companies on KnowX also only shows city and state but the list is longer than the FEINSearch, possibly because of redundancy. A search by name on freeERISA provides the FEIN, company address and phone number, whether the address is current and the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code number. Registration entitles you to 3 free searches. The freeERISA site elucidates the sources for the FEIN material, which is helpful for understanding the limitations of the database and why all FEINs aren’t listed.

Here are some new, merely worthy of a mention and updated search portals, search engines and databases.

Genealogy

RootsWeb – Newspaper Indexes
Search for the appearance of personal names in some historical newspapers.

Public Records Portals
SearchSystems – New Web site links. This site collects links to searchable public records databases and non governmental databases that collect various types of information. The “Newsites” page is updated several times a week.

Search Engines

American Legal Media has revamped its search engine, which primarily searches sites within the Law.com network. LawQuest may be useful for identifying articles and case decisions but much of the content is restricted to subscribers. [Via LegalSites]

Perform a name search at Voompeople to find employment and business associations. This can be a means of doing a name search for officers in a corporation, particularly useful in states (like California) where the Secretary of State corporation entity lookup is only by corporate name.

Private investigators may discover new research sources and approaches reading, Gathering Competitive Intelligence for Litigators and Business Lawyers (April 2007, Wisconsin Lawyer), Tony Chan’s roundup of online personal information databases and Web sites for the legal field. Much of the article is directed to attorneys, and those in Wisconsin, related to legal business development or fee-based data sources. But he also mentions a few of the free public records through which you can find people in the military, verify a professional license or disciplinary actions, and develop competitive intelligence. The article also footnotes a posting I did on the trends in restricting access to public records.

On the theme of redacting public records, Arizona legislation SB 1169 is still pending. This bill , would require the Maricopa County Recorder to remove Social Security numbers from documents on its Web site and the other counties would do the same at the request of an individual, starting in 2009. Reported in the Arizona Daily Star, AZ bill keeps SS numbers off Internet.

The Nevada County, California District Attorney has ordered the county to keep all police reports out of court case files available to the public. Police reports generally are found in criminal court case files although an agency is not required to release records it has that are generated by another government entity.

However, it appears that the Nevada County District Attorney was prompted to make this change, not by dedication to the law, but to protect one of their own.

The action comes after details of a drug arrest from a police report were published in The Union last week. Former Nevada County Animal Control Officer Arlene Winstead asked a narcotics officer to conceal evidence during her arrest, according to a sheriff’s incident report.

But police agencies often are not cooperative in releasing information that is covered by the Public Records Act. As the Californians Aware, Audit Report 2007: Public Access to Law Enforcement Information revealed, most police agencies don’t comply with public records law requests for information.

The Texas Secretary of State Athlete Agent search has been added to the other business activity registration database searches at the Texas SOS Web site. The other types of entities that can be searched by name or business name are: Debt Collector Bonds, Health Spas, Public Safety Solicitations, Telephone Solicitors, Veterans Solicitations and Notary Public.

Search by partial first or last name, business name, address or telephone number.

Search the Pennsylvania Department of State Registration database of lobbyists and lobbying firms, and the organizations they represent. A full or partial name or firm name returns a detail of the lobbying disclosure form, required for those who lobby elected officials in Pennsylvania on behalf of companies or organizations.
[Article: Pennsylvania Lobbying Registrations Searchable Online]

The flow of federal campaign money can be seen by utilizing multiple data collection sites. Real Time Investigations shows how to piece together information from the newly launched Office of Management and Budget Congressional Earmarks database with other public records expenditure sources to match politicians with the lobbyists and the companies that benefit. Then go to FedSpending to identify the Congressional district that was the primary recipient of the funds.

The income received by executives in publicly traded Standard & Poor’s Super 1500 corporations is digested in the AFL-CIO PayWatch database.
[ via beSpacific]

Corporate malefactors angle to “clean up” mentions of their names in court records. The powerful and the fearful each have their reasons… From AP:

Residential Funding wants Heffernan’s claims about who stiffed employees and which name names, stricken from the court record.

The GMAC unit, Residential Funding Co., is the largest secured creditor in Mortgage Lenders’ Chapter 11 case.

In court documents in March, Residential Funding said it wants to erase “scandalous” statements Heffernan made while fighting criminal prosecution in Connecticut for failing to pay employees up to $2.5 million in wages owed when Mortgage Lenders Network went bankrupt Feb. 5.

Finally, the Florida Supreme Court has addressed the practice within some county trial courts of removing certain dockets and files from public view. From AP:

The Florida Supreme Court issued emergency rules Thursday designed to stop the improper sealing of court records and dockets in civil cases, but delayed a decision on whether they also should cover criminal cases.

The unsigned, unanimous opinion requires court clerks to post notices on their Web sites and courthouses after a record is sealed, and allows citizens to then challenge those decisions. Courts are also prohibited from making case, docket and other identifying numbers confidential.

The privacy advocates are on the warpath to close access to online images of UCC filings, state by state. Last week the Arizona Secretary of State removed the Uniform Commercial Code filing documents from the Web site after a privacy fanatic apparently claimed that the site was a place that criminals trolled for Social Security numbers. Is there any proof for this?

Although new UCC financing statements in Massachusetts have the Social Security numbers removed from online documents there is pressure, which the Secretary of State has so far resisted, to take down the site completely.

This is an issue that has pitted the interests of consumer lobbyists against those who might otherwise be allies: the champions of open government. Public records that are accessible to all, free, and unaltered by the government are under threat by regulation, statute and public hysteria over a misplaced fear of identity theft. Surely there is a way we can keep these records available on the Internet for legitimate business and research purposes without aggravating the problem of identity theft. What do you think? Are public records a serious, documented contributor to identity fraud?

Charities and non profit organizations are monitored by state agencies and the Internal Revenue Service, and tracked by many private advocacy groups. Even if you’re not particularly interested in a specific charitable organization you might want to know the people and other entities with which they’re associated. Business journalism reporter Bill Smith developed a guide to analyzing the IRS 990 forms that nonprofits are required to submit. He also links to the advocacy groups, Charity Navigator, BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Guide Star where you can get the document images of the IRS 990 forms filed by the charities. Ministry Watch and The Foundation Center have background on nonprofits that aren’t required to file IRS form 990.

Bookmark this IRS site that lists links to each states’ charity regulator, either the Attorney General or Secretary of State, where you’ll be able to lookup details on the charitable organization.

Search for a tax deductible organization by partial name in all 50 states at once.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has instituted new rules that abolish fees for petitions to unseal cases. However, the rules require notification of the case parties by the person seeking to unseal the records. The court also ruled that financial statements are public records but that they could be sealed!

Meanwhile, Maryland legislators are considering whether to add juveniles as young as 13 years old to the sex offender registry upon conviction of a qualifying crime. Most states keep the names of juvenile defendants confidential. Another proposal would create a “no sex offenders zone” of a half mile around school yards, which other states have found is counter productive. Apparently the registrants become transient because, it turns out, if you draw a half mile ring around every school there’s nowhere for them to live!

The Colorado Secretary of State has removed UCC document images from the Web site until such time as the Social Security numbers are redacted. The Secretary of State intends to issue new UCC forms that will not include the option of listing Social Security numbers. The policy also suspends bulk electronic sales of the Department’s UCC database. Colorado joins California, which recently instituted the same measures, along with Oregon, Mississippi, Missouri and a half dozen other states

In favorable public records’ news, the Oregon Secretary of State has expanded their online Business Registry Database, adding a search by individual name of Agent, Partner, Manager, President and Secretary.

The Vermont Secretary of State has introduced a “Right To Know” database of resources and laws related to Vermont public records. Search by statutory language, an agency or department’s name, exemption category or exemption and agency.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that Board of Bar Overseers and Office of Bar Counsel are judicial agencies which are exempt from the public records provisions. Only documents held by government agencies within the executive branch are subject to the public records act.

Massachusetts criminal show cause hearings will remain closed, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial decided.

The NASD securities broker database interface has been reworked and is much more usable for private investigators who are validating a license or developing background on a company or individual. The NASD describes itself as “the primary private-sector regulator of America’s securities industry.” In the past, a license lookup required the broker’s name and the brokerage, but now a search can be done by individual name only.

The National Association of Securities Dealers BrokerCheck is an online database of registered securities brokers and registered securities firms. The search mechanism isn’t as friendly as I would like, still with remnants of the former site. If you want to search last name only, select the basic search. This returns last names with that string of letters. The advanced search option allows you to search by partial first and last name, but you must enter letters into both fields, then select “begins with”, “sounds like” or “exact match”. Select “View Full PDF Report” in the left column to view details of disciplinary actions and disputes. The full report also lists employment, unemployment, non securities employment, military service and education for the past 10 years.

Detailed reports are also available on the firm name search but you have to request a NASD report if a firm’s registration was terminated before 1999. Call the NASD to get further details by phone.

CareerOneStop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, is an occupation and industry database for job searchers, but it also provides links to all 50 states’ occupational licensing Web sites. Search by occupation, industry or keyword to find professional license and certification descriptions and links to the regulating agency.

Organizations that issue certifications, even for occupations that may not be licensed by a particular state, are also included. The certifying organizations maintain online name databases of their members, another option to verify field of employment. Note: not all certifying associations are listed for any one occupation, so be sure to check other sources that might perform the same function and also list their members.